Tattooed Hearts

by C. A. Harms

  Every single time he said things like that, I felt as if I’d cry. It would never get old.

  “Not since this morning,” I replied, and he shook his head as if he was disappointed. But I could see the playfulness dancing in his eyes.

  He released the lever and killed the engine, then moved across the boat toward me. “Well then, I am so not holding up my end of the deal.”

  “And what deal would that be?” I asked, feeling breathless as he lowered his body and parted my knees so he could position himself between them.

  “To always make you feel loved and never let you feel for even a second as if you weren’t the best part of my day.”

  My heart raced and my stomach tensed as he slid his large hands up the outsides of my thighs to rest upon my hips. He was making it hard to breathe.

  I wanted to tell him that he always made me feel those things, but the words faded when he pulled at the strings of my bathing suit.

  So many emotions played out on his face, but I couldn’t deny the lust in his eyes when he tossed away the tiny scrap of material that covered my lower half.

  “All I see is you,” he whispered as he moved in closer. “I crave you every minute of every day.”

  I tried to control my breathing, but with each word that grew more difficult. I was in awe each time he shared his feelings and showed me love. I hadn’t ever had those things with Robby. I never knew what it felt like to have a man look at you as if no one else in the world existed but you and him. I never knew that love of a man could feel so consuming.

  “I have this ache inside me whenever we’re apart, this empty space that can only be filled by you, Jenny.” And that space existed within me too. It had always been his, and would always be his.

  “I know we’ve never talked about it, and I think we both just avoided it, but tonight I want it to just be us.” I was confused for a moment, but then he lowered his swim trunks. “I just don’t want anything to separate us any longer.”

  I wanted that too, but like he said, I think we always avoided discussing it. I wasn’t worried about getting pregnant, and I was clean. Since Robby slept around, I didn’t allow him any chance to give me anything he’d brought back. And I’d been on birth control since having Landyn because I hadn’t been regular after he was born.

  I looked down once again and found him fisting his erection as he waited for me to give him my okay. I nodded and he moved in closer.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  I think needed to hear the words. “Yes,” I whispered. “Nothing between us,” I added just to show I knew what I was agreeing with.

  He pressed his cock against me, and I parted my legs farther, waiting for what I already knew we both wanted. When he paused, I looked up at him. The look in his eyes pulled at my heart and gave me such an intense rush of emotions that I found breathing through them hard.

  “I love you, Jenny,” he whispered hoarsely.

  I nodded as I tried to hold back the tears. I would never tire of the emotions he brought out in me. In fact, I welcomed them because I’d never felt so good. Sean loved me with the deepest of passions. He cherished me and made me feel whole. So many things were wrapped up in this moment, so many things shared between us without us even speaking. It was just so much to take in, but I think he understood.

  He leaned over me and pressed his lips to mine as he slowly entered me.

  I could no longer stop my tears as I gripped his shoulders and held on to the man I refused to ever let go of.

  “I gotcha,” he whispered, and I knew without a doubt that he did. “I’ll always have you.”

  I actually thought there was no possible way I could fall in love with Sean any more than I already had. But again he proved me wrong.

  I sat next to the back-sliding door that led to the backyard, my ear pressed to the screen as I listened to him and Landyn talk just outside. When Landyn had told Sean he had never camped out before, they decided they needed a boys’ night. Sean immediately loaded him into his truck, and they went into town to get not only a tent but sleeping bags, lanterns, and the whole works.

  “Sean,” Landyn said in the darkness.

  “Yeah, buddy?”

  “Thank you.”

  I leaned in even closer, wondering what he could be leading up to.

  “For what, little man?” Sean asked.

  As silence set in, my stomach knotted. I knew my son. When he was happy it was infectious, and when he was said, you could hear it in his voice. But in this moment, I was unsure what was rolling around in my little boy’s head.

  “You do things with me,” he said. “My dad never did.”

  I let my head fall back against the frame of the door and fought back tears.

  “I’ll always do this with you, Landyn,” Sean assured him, using the tone he did with me when he needed me to understand the depth of his words. “I love our times together.”

  “Always?”

  “I want you to hear me, bud.” I could almost picture the intense stare I was sure Sean was now giving my son. “No matter what, I will always be your friend. And nothing will ever take me away from you.”

  “Not even if we move back home?” I was floored by Landyn’s question and struggled not to go out there to find out what was making him worry. But I listened instead as Sean continued.

  “You’re not going anywhere, and if you do, you gotta know that I’ll go too. You wanna know why?” There was a pause, and I could only assume that Landyn nodded or whispered a yes.

  “Because you’re my best friend, little man.”

  Heavy, uncontrollable tears fell from my eyes. That conversation proved Sean was the most amazing man I’d ever known, and I would never forget his words. They both broke my heart and then pieced it back together.

  “You and your momma mean more to me than anything else in this world. I love you, Landyn, and if you have to go back to Texas, I can promise you that I’ll be your side. Tonight is just the beginning of many things you and I will do together.”

  “Promise?” Landyn’s shaky voice asked.

  “I promise you,” Sean assured him once again as I sat there in the darkness of the dining room holding my hand to my heart. It ached over all the things Landyn had missed, and I sobbed at the idea that his father never saw the greatness inside him.

  But beneath all that sadness I was grateful he had a friend and role model like Sean who I knew would help him grow into the best man he could be.

  And I vowed that my son would finally be the one to break the mold of the Whiteman men. Because Landyn Thomas was destined to be more.

  I tried to hide the fact I spent half the night crying, but the moment the back-sliding door opened the next morning and Sean came in, I could tell he’d noticed. He moved across the kitchen, took my face in his hands, and looked me over with a worried expression.

  “What happened?” he asked, still holding me close.

  I tried to shake my head because I knew if I talked about it, I might once again fall apart. A mother wants nothing more than for her child to grow up happy and loved. She doesn’t want to see them lonely, or in any way sad, if she can help it. But knowing I was partly to blame for the emptiness inside Landyn broke my heart. I chose to stay in a loveless marriage. I kept my son in a home that was filled with animosity where his father never showed his son the love he should have.

  I was the one that stayed even though everything inside me screamed run.

  “Jenny, don’t leave me hanging,” Sean whispered. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  I took in a deep breath, hoping it was enough to hold back my tears. “I heard you last night,” I confessed. “I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but what you said to him was so amazing I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t expect to hear what I did.”

  “Oh baby.” He let go of my face and wrapped me in his arms. “We talked it out.”

  “I heard,” I confirmed.

  “Good, because I meant every word.”

&
nbsp; And I already knew he did. He was just that kind of man.

  We stood there together as he held me close and I allowed him to comfort me. I couldn’t look at the past and the wrongs I’d committed. I could only look forward and know I would never again allow my son to feel unwanted.

  “How crazy is it that my best friend is an almost seven-year-old boy?”

  I smiled. “It’s not crazy at all,” I replied as I pulled back and looked up at him, “because that same seven-year-old is my best friend too.”

  My eyes clouded once again, but this time I held the tears back. I found peace in knowing Landyn and I had Sean, because I knew he would never hurt us.

  SEAN

  “HOW ABOUT ADULTERY?” I asked and instantly regretted it.

  “Hypocritical, don’t you think?” Melinda asked with a smirk.

  “Okay, fine.” I too could no longer hold back my smile. “So forget that option. But in my defense, that didn’t happen between us until after she filed for divorce.”

  Melinda continued to look over Texas divorce laws. “Cruelty and abandonment,” she said as she thumbed through the papers she held. “She reported the act of violence against her the night she had him arrested and filed a restraining order. She could use abandonment as a second option for what he did prior to that.”

  My hands clenched. I still wanted that sack of shit to feel fear and pain for ever laying a hand on her. One of the hardest things I’ve had to do lately is hold it together whenever his name was brought up. I couldn’t stop envisioning his cries and his pleas of forgiveness as I stood over him, making him pay for the hate he showed Jenny and his son.

  I remained silent now even though holding back my anger was hard.

  “Prior to this incident, Jenny filed for public aid to help raise their son. When she did, she stated she hadn’t heard or seen her husband in more than ninety days.”

  My stomach tensed as a sickening feeling filled my chest.

  I shouldn’t have left them. I should have gone with my heart and taken her and Landyn with me all those years ago. I could have stopped all this from happening. I could have given them the life they deserved.

  “Another time she sold an old truck and some jewelry to pay for medical expenses when their son grew ill and was hospitalized. Robby had been gone for months at a time then too. Not to mention his long track record of run-ins with the law.” Melinda looked up and shook her head, I imagine feeling as disgusted as I currently was. “I don’t know what her attorney back in Texas is waiting for, but I see more than one reason why she may be granted a divorce.”

  “Her lawyer is shit,” I mumbled and Melinda smirked. She had been my attorney for the last two years, and never once had I questioned her loyalty.

  “I have a friend,” she said as she grabbed a card and turned it over. “Stanley Wainwright. He’s a hard-ass.”

  She held the card out after writing something on the back. “He’s expensive, Sean,” she added.

  “Don’t care.” And I didn’t. If it meant I could get this entire mess over faster, I’d pay whatever he required. Hell, I’d sell my damn house if it was necessary.

  “He’ll get it done,” she assured me. “And he won’t let up.”

  “That’s what I need.” Finally we had a little break in the darkness. I stood from the chair and moved toward the office door.

  “Being happy looks good on you, Sean.” I looked back to see Melinda giving me that motherly look. She was a happily married woman and mother of four and found it easy to take on that same motherly role with me. She was always doing her best to keep me on the straight and narrow. “That woman is very lucky.”

  “It’s me who is lucky,” I said with a wink and walked out feeling lighter than I had in days.

  It had been so long since I could honestly say my life was good and I was happy. But waking up each morning with Jenny in my arms and listening to the sounds of Landyn’s laughter and joy was my version of happy.

  Robby was fighting the divorce, making moving on as difficult as possible for Jenny. But he had no idea what was coming at him. I wouldn’t give up until Jenny was free from him.

  She deserved better than he had ever given her.

  “He asleep?” I asked as Jenny stepped into the garage.

  I’d been in here for the last two hours, tinkering as I fought against my building anxiety over Talladega. For some reason the track always gave me so much nervous energy I flew high for days prior to the event. I couldn’t eat, and forget sleep. It was such a big buildup of adrenaline that at times I felt like I was out of control.

  “Yeah, he passed out,” she said as she took a few steps closer. She trailed her hand over the fender of my car as she looked up at me, her eyes dancing with mischief.

  I know she’d noticed the change in me. Most people that didn’t know me would think I was on something because of my high energy. I wanted the win more than ever, but right now this beautiful woman was giving me the best kind of distraction. She always made things better.

  “You lock the doors at the house?” She held up her key and jiggled it from side to side. Good girl. “And the monitor?”

  She reached around to her back pocket and pulled out the baby monitor we had bought for the garage and turned up the volume. I’d gotten one because the last thing I wanted was for Landyn to wake up scared while we were down here, unable to hear him.

  I took it from her hand and turned it up full blast before setting it down on the tire rack beside me. When I turned back to face her, she had leaned back against the hood and placed her outstretched arms behind her to support her weight.

  Now call me a sucker for a woman on the hood of a car, because fuck me, the visions rolling around in my head at that moment were so far from innocent. My body was already humming with the need to make them a reality.

  “You come down here to check on me?” I asked, moving in just a little closer. I wanted to pounce on her and devour her sweetness while she screamed for more. But I remained calm. How, I have no fucking idea.

  She shrugged as she scooted up the hood just a little more.

  “Feel like helping me burn off some of this energy I got coiling through me?” She better not say no.

  “What did you have in mind?” She bit her lower lip, and I think I moaned. She smirked and looked completed happy with herself.

  Yes, I’m sure I moaned.

  She parted her legs, and I gripped her knees, parting them farther.

  “It involves you,” I said, trailing my fingertip along her soft thigh. I leaned in and pressed my hips in closer to hers. “And me.” Her eyes lit up with excitement. Yeah, darlin’ that is all for you. “And the hood of this car,” I added and gained a slight whimper from her when I pushed my erection against her once again and shifted slightly.

  “You game?” I asked with my eyebrow cocked.

  I absolutely loved how fun and playful we were together. But we were also serious, demanding, and passionate with each other. It was the perfect combination of everything I could want in a partner.

  I was already breathing harder, my heart racing as she looked up at me through hooded eyes.

  With my hips still pressed to hers, she rocked her own, gaining the friction I knew she needed.

  She hooked her legs around my waist and pulled my body to hers as she continued to rock her hips against me. My girl knew how to move.

  “Quit stalling,” she whispered just before she wrapped her hands around the back of my neck and pulled me down to her.

  I am a guy. A hot-blooded male who understands what’s hot, and my girl was on fire; wanton, sexy as fuck, not holding back, taking it all, and who the hell was I to stop Jenny from getting hers?

  Within seconds she had my pants unbuckled, lowered halfway down my thighs, and her hand fisted around my cock. Somehow, she did this while shimmying those tight-ass shorts down her legs along with her panties.

  Jenny and I have shared passionate nights before that left us sated and br
eathless, but this was raw and dirty, and my body hummed from the pure erotic scene we had set.

  Jenny sprawled out, open and waiting on the hood of my race car, like every man’s wet dream. This man’s, anyway.

  “You just going to stand there staring at me, or you going take what’s yours?” she asked as she lowered herself to the hood, pressing her back flat against the cool metal. Her nipples hardened from the reaction of the cold mixed with the pressure of her hand as she cupped her breasts and squeezed.

  I thought it couldn’t get any better than this, but I was so very wrong. Slowly and tauntingly she glided her hand over her stomach toward the apex of her thighs. As she lightly stroked her clit with a finger, my knees grew weak. My hands shook to take over for her, but my mind was enjoying the show.

  She gave the bud a soft caress, then a teasing flip of her fingertip. The moment she slipped her finger inside herself, I leaned in to brace myself on the hood.

  Damn, she was trying to kill me.

  I was so transfixed on the movements of her hands that her giggle broke me from my trance.

  I looked up and found her watching me with that playful look in her eyes.

  “You having a good time teasing me?” I asked.

  “Who’s teasing?” she cooed. “I’m just waiting for you to catch up.”

  My adrenaline and nervous energy warped into a maddening form of want and need. I took her hips and pulled her forward, wasting no further time. I needed her.

  Her back arched and she released a long, pleased moan when I slammed inside her and began to move.

  I took what she offered and loved every second of it: the look in her eyes as she watched me move; the way her face glazed over with that glorious look of satisfaction.

  It would seem my girl needed this as bad as I did.

  There was nothing slow and sweet about this.

  Our loud moans filled the garage, and the popping of the hood beneath us did nothing to slow us down.

  “More,” she wailed. “Oh my fuck,” Jenny moaned as her body tightened around me.

  I rarely ever heard her cuss unless she was talking about that asshole from her past, but the words that flew from her mouth now were anything but clean.